Ann Summers has launched an insolvency process to slash rents, as the sex toy and lingerie retailer fights to survive the hit to high streets caused by the pandemic, the Financial Times reported. The UK chain on Friday announced plans for a company voluntary agreement, which often ends with landlords agreeing hefty rent cuts. It said rents for two-thirds of its 91 stores had been cut after “extensive discussions” with landlords. But it had failed to reach an agreement on 25 stores, which it was now proposing to place under the CVA to negotiate rents pegged to sales.

German prosecutors on Friday opened an investigation into partners at EY who audited Wirecard , after an accounting watchdog filed a report accusing them of criminality in their work for the failed payments company, Reuters reported. A spokeswoman for the Munich prosecutor’s office said it had examined the complaint brought by the APAS oversight board, adding that opening such an investigation was a procedural requirement. “We continue to conduct our investigations in the entire Wirecard complex against numerous suspects,” the spokeswoman said, adding the outcome of the inquiries was open.

Global debt is set to reach $200 trillion, or 265% of the world’s annual economic output, by the end of the year, S&P Global has forecast - although it doesn’t expect a crisis any time soon, Reuters reported. The credit ratings giant said it amounted to a 14-point rise as a percentage of world GDP, having been amplified by both the economic plunge caused by COVID and the extra borrowing that governments, firms and households have had to resort to. “Global debt-to-GDP has been trending up for many years; the pandemic simply exacerbated the rise,” S&P’s report said.

The Queen’s purse has been hit by a string of company collapses including PizzaExpress and New Look, showing that even royal finances are not immune from the turmoil on the UK’s high streets, the Financial Times reported. The Crown Estate, which manages the monarchy’s £13.4bn commercial property portfolio in the public interest, has suffered as retailers and casual dining chains restructure after pandemic lockdowns and restrictions crushed earnings, plunging many companies into administration.

Economic activity in Spain and Italy’s services sector has hit a six-month low according to a widely watched business survey, as consumer companies bear the brunt of lockdowns to battle the spread of coronavirus, the Financial Times reported. Italy’s IHS Markit purchasing managers’ index for services fell for the third consecutive month to 39.4 in November, while the Spanish index fell for the fourth consecutive month to 39.5. A reading below the 50 mark indicates that a majority of businesses reported a contraction in activity from the previous month.

As with Japan in the 1990s, years of low — and even negative — interest rates in the eurozone have led to suspicions that the region’s business landscape is harbouring a load of zombie firms, the Financial Times reported. That is, companies that are being kept artificially alive by the repeated extension of credit. Many have tried to place the blame on the European Central Bank’s aggressive easing for the phenomenon, which critics say stymies longer-term growth prospects because it keeps capital and labour locked into inefficient parts of the economy and chokes innovation.

EY has lashed out at Germany’s audit watchdog for prematurely reporting suspected criminal misconduct by its partners to prosecutors in an escalating battle over the Big Four firm’s audit work at defunct payments company Wirecard, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. Wirecard collapsed into insolvency in June in one of Europe’s biggest postwar accounting frauds after receiving “all clear” audits by EY for more than a decade. Apas, the German audit watchdog, told criminal prosecutors in late September that three current and former EY partners may have acted criminally.

In a short Twitter thread last month, Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist of the IMF and past president of the American Economic Association, reassessed how the economic effects of the pandemic had played out compared with what he had expected, the Financial Times reported. One striking observation was: “I expected a lot of inefficient bankruptcies, due to high debt rather than lack of viability post covid. This . . . does not seem to be the case. The proportion of low productivity firms in bankruptcies appears to be roughly the same as usual.” Blanchard is, of course, right.

Europe’s top banking supervisor is writing to the region’s biggest lenders to warn that many of them are failing to do enough to prepare for a likely increase in bad loans due to the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported. Andrea Enria, president of the European Central Bank’s supervisory board, said the shortfalls in banks’ preparations for a likely rise in bad loans was one factor to be considered in its decision on whether to allow them to resume dividend payments and share buybacks.

Norwegian Air proposed on Thursday to convert debt to equity, offload planes and sell new shares in an attempt to survive the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought the company to its knees, Reuters reported. As part of the plan, the Oslo-based carrier, which recently applied for bankruptcy protection in an Irish court, aims to raise up to 4 billion Norwegian crowns ($455.4 million) from the sale of new shares or hybrid instruments, it said.